for dust you are
by Kali Cephirot
Summary: There are few things that Rabi knows won't ever change. These are the things that ground him. Everything else belongs to the fire.................... Rabi, some RabixAllen. ONE SHOT, FINISHED.


**for dust you are **

i.

The things that 'Rabi' knows won't ever change and he'll always know are these: the scent of dried old parchment and old books, the heavy scent of tobacco that clings to Panda's clothes, the comforting way his hands hurt after he has spent a whole night writing.

Everything else shifts, moves, constantly changes into a dizzy vortex of sounds, light, textures and sometimes he's almost afraid to blink, because that could be enough for the world to go into another direction.

These are the things that won't change. These are the things that, although superficial, are important for him, as a person, things that ground him upon the role he's playing, no matter what.

ii.

Names are not important.

Most people don't know this, too busy trying to keep their world in the direction they want it too. For that, names and tags are important. Most humans, he knows, are incapable of living in a world without these delimitations, clinging to the faint meaning they've brought for things to make sense. Nicknames are disliked because they break the routine they want to make for themselves.

But few things, Rabi knows, depend on their name to exist and continue. Few names will be recorded in history, and less than a handful of those names will make a difference.

For example: It's 'La parca' in Mexico, 'Yama' in India, 'the Morrigan' for the Celts.

It's the Earl of Millenium everywhere.

iii.

Allen Walker is a name that Rabi is sure he won't forget. If the prophecies are true, then Allen is supposed to be one of those few names that will matter.

It's no different than with Linali and Kanda and Miranda and Crowley and all the people he has met in Head Quarters. Their names will bleed out and they won't matter. They'll become stats.

It's only because of the prophecies that Allen is different at all. It's just that.

iv.

The prophecies say:

"_And I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.  
And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.  
And there came out of the smoke locustus upon the earth: and unto them was given power."_

And:

"_And I looked and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given upon him to kill with a sword and with hunger, with death and with the beast of the earth."_

These are things that will change as they have changed from the beginning. Prophets come each age and add upon the others one after the other, and Rabi knows that Prophecies are not to be believed.

And yet.

v.

It was just one -- honest laugh, doubling over, leaning against Linali who tried to seem serious but then she was laughing too, covering her mouth with her hand.

It was nothing – fighting side by side with Kanda, knowing that he could bitch about as much as he wanted, but Kanda would be there to cover his back.

I didn't mean to – spend the whole night talking with Allen about nothing and everything, every little thing that didn't matter and that somehow it did, and Allen's eyes warm and his smile soft.

Late at night, Rabi wonders when he had to start the very human, very useless costume of making excuses that change nothing of the facts.

(It was probably around the same time that he started being Rabi rather than just faking it)

vi.

The first kiss --

(Pressed against a wall where they could be seen and not giving a damn, not right then, catching Allen's little hitch of breath and he was there, a little bit thinner but much more real than the last two-almost-three weeks and relief was cyanide-sweet as it spread through Rabi goddammit)

-- and Allen smiling, bright and endless and still so fucking humane, saying 'I'm fine' and 'sorry'and Rabi is sure that these stains inside him will not come out no matter what he does, these pieces of existence that these people have bleed inside him.

He's sure this is what being burnt must feel like.

vii.

He covers his left eye, draws darkness as he calms his heartbeat, as he listens to his breathing, and lets himself sink into his memories. His left eye itches and the sudden sting of regret makes Rabi hiss.

The law of Bookman, passed since Matthew himself:

"_And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee:  
for it is profitable for thee  
that one of thy members should perish,  
and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell."_

Now more than ever, Rabi wonders if Matthew spoke from experience, out of his grief.

viii.

There's a small village in Greece that he would like to return some day. There were no wars there and they were there because a member of their clan contacted Bookman, needed to talk with him.

The buildings were white and fresh, there was music and warmth and Rabi spent three days with nothing to do but to read by the ocean's shore, being no-one at all.

It's not home but then, no-one in the Black Order has one, all lost to the war. Still, it's a place that Rabi probably likes, as much as he likes anything, but he stops thinking about that small village with its sun-warmed streets and white beaches when he starts thinking that he'd like to show that place to Allen, too.

ix.

(The nights with Allen, silent kisses, moans lost against each other's flesh. Yes, just like this, and Rabi remembers it all. Harder and there and when Allen comes his back curves like glory, and no statue Bernini or Michaelangelo ever did compares to this, his face flushed and Rabi stares every single time and he made sure to remembers them all.)

x.

When they're near the border of Bosnia, Allen walks inside a church. It's dark and the scent of incense is heavy in the air, flames making the dark wood of the idols flare, the Theotokos dark eyes almost as if moving, giving Rabi the chills, the prayers of the people kneeling down a low background humm.

He doesn't like temples of any sort: too much despair inside, too morbid. Few people in the Black Order likes them, perhaps because most of the people in the Order aren't Catholic. Innocence cares not about religion, and thus the Black Order cares little of what religion their Exorcist are.

Still, he watches Allen cross his hands and bow his head, kneeling down the way Catholics do and the questions bubble deep inside him as he watches Allen.

But there's something so broken inside Allen's expression as he prays that he doesn't dare to ask them, even though perhaps he should.

xi.

The thing with Allen is that he pretty much has 'martyr' tattooed on his forehead. It's there, in the softness of his eyes as he looks at someone suffering, let it be akuma or a person. It's there as he bleeds and breaks his body time after time, because there is no way he won't keep on fighting when someone else needs him.

He'll keep on giving himself away, piece by piece, until there is nothing left, perhaps not even anyone who remembers his name.

(But what is it in a name anyway.)

xii.

Rabi isn't a martyr. He's not a traitor, he won't sell people for silver, but he's not a martyr. People die, let it be a war or not, and this is a war. People make choices, and if sacrifice is one of them, he'll watch them do it and that's it.

People turn to dust no matter what. Even if you save them today, tomorrow they'll find new ways to kill each other.

That never changes.

But for their laughs, for their tears. That changes them in ways that Rabi isn't sure he understands, that pain.

He can't explain these things and these things will change, they'll be gone with fire and blood, with water and salt, with thunder and storm. These people will be gone and then he'll be gone, too. They'll be gone and he'll be lost

xiii.

"_Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection into eternal life."_

The fire eats at his clothes, coiling around him. And it's changing him, too, all this.

It changes him too, he thinks, the pain, remembering when Allen died, thinking of the way hurt had curled inside his chest and how it had spread, like ants eating inside of him, changing him in ways he's not sure he wants to go, except he's already there, signing a fake name to the list of martyrs, perhaps.

But if this pain is his, perhaps it's something. A thing that grounds him, something that means that he exists. Like the sweet sorrow in Allen's expression that he won't ever understand, the pain that blossoms in his eyes and makes his smile bitter.

Perhaps there's something else to understand.

(Bookman has always said he's too curious for his own good anyway).


End file.
